She is close enough to me that I can see her, because even now there is the outward sign of visible light, even at night in this parking lot on the outskirts of Algoe. After we kiss, our foreheads touch as we stare at each other. Yes, I can see her almost perfectly in this cracked darkness.

Colin thought about the dork mantra: sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. What a dirty lie.

Funerals...are for the living.

Great books help you understand, and they help you feel understood.

And yet still I worried. I like being a person. I wanted to keep at it. Worry is yet another side effect of dying.

Tuesday—we had school for the first time. Madame O’Malley had a moment of silence at the beginning of French class, a class that was always punctuated with long moments of silence, and then asked us how we were feeling. “Awful,” a girl said. “En français,” Madame O’Malley replied. “En français.

She loved mysteries so much that she became one.